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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Movie and music companies on Tuesday said they have filed briefs with an appeals court to overturn a ruling that found two Internet file-sharing services were not liable for copyright infringement.

The groups, which have been aggressively trying to stamp out online piracy, suffered a major setback this spring when U.S. District Court Judge Stephen Wilson in Los Angeles ruled the sites, Grokster and Morpheus, should not be shut down because they cannot control what is traded over their systems.

Morpheus is run by StreamCast Networks.

Film studios, represented by the Motion Picture Association of America, and musicians, under the Recording Industry Association of America, said in a statement the district court dramatically departed from well-established copyright law in the ruling.

The briefs were filed with the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit in San Francisco.

The associations represent companies owned by the world's major media companies such as AOL Time Warner, Bertelsmann AG, Vivendi Universal' and Walt Disney Co. .

"It was wrong," said Cary Sherman, president of the RIAA, referring to Wilson's ruling. "These are businesses that were built for the exclusive reason of illegally exchanging copyrighted works and they make money hand over fist from it. The court of appeals should hold them accountable."

Mike Page, a lawyer for Grokster, said the company was confident the appeals court would arrive at the same conclusions as Wilson.

"At first blush, there's nothing new in their (court) papers that wasn't argued in the district court and was rejected. We expect the ninth circuit to come out the same way," he said.

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Source: Reuters